1 Corinthians 4:7-19
English Standard Version
8Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you!
9For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men.
10We are fools for Christ 's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.
11To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless,
12and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure;
13when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.
14I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.
15For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
16I urge you, then, be imitators of me.
17That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.
18Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you.
19But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power.
